Why the reverence for Latin?

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ProVobis said:
Let’s put it this way. I carry a translator with me.
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ok, but computer language is not something you would use to talk to your friend, right? Cobol or whatever has a specific purpose for a specific audience.

Language of any kind is like that. It’s simply charitable to speak with others in a way that facilitates communication.
Language should also contribute to common sense, which is pretty much self descriptive.

I love Latin, to sing it and hear it. But it is what it is, and nothing more. And that should be enough.
 
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When you work in IT you do. 🙂

You have to be able to read code.
 
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If you are using COBOL, you will need a translator for your translator 😆
 
You mean like debugging tools?

That’s another language. 🙂

BTW do they still use COBOL these days? I know java is pretty cool.
 
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The programmers who work for me mostly use ASP.net, but I’m not a programmer (or rather I used to be a really bad programmer). Some java, C++ and C# also.
 
Ridgerunner said:
I think English is about 1/3 Latin derived. About 1/3 from a now-archaic form of French. About 1/3 from a Teutonic language which I think maybe was Old Frisian.
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What about Anglo-Saxon? Surely that is the precursor to modern English.
 
ProVobis said:
You may be hitting on something here. Do the ICEL people collect royalties AND get spiritual benefits every time an English Mass is said anywhere in the world?
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Sorry, I don’t know what ICEL is.
 
tomarin said:
What about Anglo-Saxon? Surely that is the precursor to modern English.
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Middle English, the language of Chaucer was modern English’s predecessor. Shakespeare and the KJV bible are really the beginning of modern English.
 
The reason Latin is so effective in excorsims is becuase the use of Latin promotes unity, and the devil does not like unity.
 
Augustinian said:
Middle English, the language of Chaucer was modern English’s predecessor. Shakespeare and the KJV bible are really the beginning of modern English.
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You’re right; I should have avoided the word modern. What I meant was, shouldn’t whatever came before what we call ‘English’ be Anglo-Saxon - the language that Beowulf was written (or performed) in?
 
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International Commission of English in the Liturgy or something like that.
 
Really? I never thought of that. When I prayed over a demonically oppressed coworker ( The priest she consulted afterwards said everything I did was right ) I said the Fatima Prayer, the Hail Mary and the short Prayer to Saint Michael in Latin.

The English parts was asking Jesus to make the demon go away with His Precious Blood.
 
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I think there was a language now referred to as “Old Saxon”. It was very closely related to Old Frisian. Both were very closely related to what we refer to as “Old English”, and it’s possible that Old English derived from Old Frisian because there is still a dialect in what is now the Netherlands called “Frisian” which is supposedly the closest language or dialect to English on earth.

But I’m no linguist or historian, either one, so I could be mistaken.

Beowulf was, I believed, originally in Old English, not Old Saxon. But again, supposedly they were closely related. If there was ever a language properly called “Anglo-Saxon” I’m unaware of it. I think those names are closely associated in reference simply because they were closely related in time, place and possible tribal kinship.
 
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tomarin said:
What about Anglo-Saxon? Surely that is the precursor to modern English.
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FTR, for the rrecord everyone, English is a low German language. Or is close to Low German, see article. So, it appears to be a complex answer. I’d not forget that English (and most of the other royalty in the day) was German or appears to be related to the Germans. It really is a matter of research.

Low German​

Low German is most closely related to Frisian and English,

Low German - Wikipedia
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Sometimes, I can listen to something in German, say “Silent Night” or the “Our Father” and so on. It can sound similar to English but I can not quite understand it.

And I took some in High School. A bit of a difficult language to me.

Apparently, Low Saxon is used as well as a term.

Tomarin is correct imho. Maybe we can ask a German teacher… and still, that doesn’t mean what they say is so but that’s what our German teacher told us.
 
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Isn’t it equally possible that he may not have spoken “any language necessary” and that his divine nature is what allowed Him and another individual to understand one another even if they spoke different languages?
 
Augustinian said:
Middle English, the language of Chaucer was modern English’s predecessor. Shakespeare and the KJV bible are really the beginning of modern English.
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This sure takes me back. A million years ago when I was in college, I took a course in Chaucer. The professor really was good, but he insisted that we never quote from the text in modern English in papers or exams. But Middle English really isn’t all that far from modern English once you get used to it.
 
Back to Latin, someone told me recently, that the Latin we read and pray in was… a more formal version of Latin, then, if you spoke to the people in the Roman Empire, they spoke a more “common form” of Latin. This may have been touched on the thread already, I think.
 
Roguish said:
Most religions use for their liturgy, scripture, and all “weighty” writings an archaic language that is no longer used (or was never used) as a means of everyday communication.
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Latin was the language of the Church at the time that St. Jerome translated the Bible into the Vulgate - the common language translation. Many writings of the doctors of the Church are in Latin because it remained a common language as the Church spread throughout the world. The language isn’t archaic, but it has fallen into disuse outside of a narrowing circle of practitioners. Its continued use isn’t because the Church is stuck in the past, but because the Church is much more than a passing fad.
 
My wife’s mother was Alsatian. Apparently in Alsace they spoke a form of “low German”, or at least according to her it was so.

But English is also about 1/3 Old French in origin. A quick story. I took French in college and wasn’t too bad at it. My wife and I once took a trip to Ste Barthelemy. I found that I had immense difficulty understanding the French tourists, but not the locals. Turns out the locals were all from Normandy about 300 years ago. They spoke French, and no doubt about it, but there was something about the way they said it that was easier to understand.

I once discussed with a very good certified translator whose first language was not English, what the most difficult part of translation was for her. She said it was at business meetings when people took an informal break. When English speakers speak, we sometimes switch back and forth between the “modes” of English. Business is largely French in origin; science has a lot of Latin, and domestic matters Teutonic. We don’t know we’re “shifting languages” if we switch from talking about finance to talking about football or the kids, but we are.
 
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